Category: Wedding Traditions

Vincent M. Mallozzi — or “Vinny,” to those who know him — comes right out and says it:

I’m not a priest or a rabbi or an online minister — nor do I play one on television — and yet I have married thousands of couples from around the world.

And while I have never led an exchange of vows, generations of brides and grooms who once gathered before me have shown thanks by sending emails and postcards from their honeymoons, and, on occasion, invitations to their wedding receptions.

And while he’s not a priest or a rabbi or an online minister (and perhaps he should be!) Vinny’s “higher calling” is that of being the Wedding Reporter for the “cathedral of journalism,” The New York Times. He began his career as a sports reporter there, from 1986 until 2003, then transitioned to the nuptial news desk, covering some 6,000 weddings in the time since then.

So what’s the one question that causes nearly every bride he interviews to take a lengthy pause?

“My service comes complete with a query,” he writes, “that renders women of all tongues rather speechless: ‘Will you be taking your husband’s last name or keeping your own?’”